August 23, 2004

Freshmen Pour Into North Campus

By | August 23, 2004

It took 517 volunteers nine and a half hours to move 3200 first-year students, including 500 transfer students, into the dorms on North and West Campus on Friday as the relentless rain soaked comforters, radios, and parents.

“I wanted to send [my son] with a dozen pairs of thermal underwear,” said one woman who would only identify herself as “a nice Jewish mother” because “my son would be mortified.” Other new students found themselves getting used to being on their own.

“It’s sort of weird being here all by my self. I’m excited though. I’m sure the rain’ll let up,” said Diana Magee ’08, as she looked anxiously at the sky.

Complaints about the rain were common, but the first-year students refused to let it dampen the day, and the volunteers marveled at how efficiently the day progressed.

“It’s going very smoothly. It wasn’t too backed up. The rain slowed us down. It seems like a lot less people this year, but it’s just running a lot more smoothly,” said Bryan Muldowney ’05, co-chair of the volunteers.

Still, freshman jitters remained.

“I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. I have butterflies, and I’m nervous,” said Gabe Klein ’08. With additional reporting by Peter Norlander.

Related

ByAugust 24, 2004

The Collegetown Creeper didn’t take a summer vacation. The thin, white male, measuring in at somewhere between 5’8″ and 6’0″, continued to tiptoe around Collegetown this summer, hiding outside female students’ residences during the nighttime hours. The Ithaca Journal reported that in the early morning of Tuesday, August 10, two female students separately reported a man meeting the Creeper’s description sneaking around their bedroom windows. These reports bring the total number of reports since September 2003 to 15. In the first reported incident, the student said that friends called her to tell her there was someone looking in her bedroom window. In the second report, which occurred at 2:42 a.m., the student reported that a man began to knock on her bedroom window, waking her up. She said the knocking became louder until she screamed that she was going to call the police and, as a result, he ran away. Other incidents have allegedly included the Creeper attempting to steal a woman’s blanket through her window as she napped on a couch as well as another incident which ended with the perpetrator being chased away by the victim’s boyfriend. The man has been prowling the streets in Collegetown since the first incidents in September, 2003, however Sun archives show similar events leading back to 1999. Last Spring, a victim advised that Collegetown residents to have locks on their room doors, and to keep their blinds shut if the room sits empty. “I thought nothing of sleeping with my window open because it was hot out — but what I didn’t realize was that my window screen doesn’t have those slidey-click things on them,” she told The Sun. “It just completely slides up and down with nothing in it’s way. I would check out the window, and if they have a screen like mine, ask your landlord to switch it.” The Cornell Police do not have jurisdiction over Collegetown and therefore have no jurisdiction over events that occur in the Creeper’s prowling grounds. However, the Ithaca Police department continues to investigate the incidents. Archived article by Eric FinkelsteinSun News Editor

ByAugust 24, 2004

For the fourth year in a row, Cornell University has been ranked as the 14th best university in the country. Topping the list this year are Harvard and Princeton which tied for number one, followed by Yale and the University of Pennsylvania at number three. Columbia University and Dartmouth College tied for ninth. Unlike last year, Cornell ranked below Brown University, which shot up from 17th to 13th. As recently as 1999, Cornell was ranked sixth in the U.S. News list, but according to Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and director of Cornell’s Higher Education Research Institute, Cornell’s decline in the rankings is the result of the changing criteria used in the U.S. News survey as well as a reporting error made by Cornell in 1999 that showed a higher faculty to student ratio than actually existed. Since many of Cornell’s colleges are funded by the State of New York, recent cuts made to state education spending have meant that Cornell’s funding has not kept pace with other schools at the top of the list, which are privately funded. “The annual US News and World Report rankings always get a lot of attention but we’ve found that they have little effect on applications to Cornell,” said Doris Davis, associate provost for admissions and enrollment. “We do not formulate policy at Cornell in order to affect the US News rankings,” Davis said. Another factor contributing to Cornell’s standing is its rate of improvement compared with other schools. “Cornell’s students are getting better but students at other schools are getting better faster,” said Ehrenberg. Ehrenberg believes, however, that Cornell has many strengths that the rankings do not reflect. “We are a very different than the schools ranked higher than us. We offer a broader range of study than the others which are mainly either liberal arts or engineering schools. Students in the School of Art, Architecture and planning are admitted on the basis of portfolios rather than test scores,” said Ehrenberg. “Cornell should spend more time promoting what it has to offer than obsessing with rankings,” said Ehrenberg, who went on to praise the University’s new website and the efforts of President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77 and his efforts to improve the image of Cornell. While many students interviewed agreed that the rankings were only one of many factors that influenced their decisions to go to Cornell, some expressed disappointment with the University’s place on the list. “I like that it is an Ivy League school. I like that it is big and I like that it had the program I wanted. Rankings didn’t matter at all,” said Stephanie Herschaft ’08. “That’s probably why I’m going to transfer,” said Michael Bolos ’08, referring to Cornell’s ranking, “You want to go to a top school and how else to you know [besides the US News rankings]?” “The rankings mattered to me when I applied but I did not know how Cornell ranked compared to other Ivy League schools. In my mind, Cornell is a better school than Penn, Brown or Dartmouth,” said Sam Lundin ’07. Archived article by Daniel PalmadessoSun Staff Writer